Eric Idle

It must be true: All good things indeed must come to an end — a fireworks-strafing, confetti-showering and rock-god-reviving end if you're talking about the Summer Olympics that concluded Sunday. "We lit the flame, and we lit up the world," said Sebastian Coe, head of the organizing committee and an Olympic medalist himself — he won two golds and two silvers in the 1980s. "On this last day, I can finish with these words," he said. "When our time came, Britain, we did it right." Coe spoke during the closing ceremony ending a Games that seem destined to go down as a success on several levels — certainly on the athletic level, with the...

Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks co-chair one of L.A.'s quirkier show business traditions: the Shakespeare Center's annual fundraiser, "Simply Shakespeare." Now in its 21st year, the benefit, a celeb-studded reading of "The Merry Wives of...

IT'S a dark and crowded theater in New York. The curtain has only been up five minutes, and Steve Wynn, the billionaire owner of the Wynn Las Vegas hotel, leans in, grips my knee and whispers in my ear: "Eric," he says, "this will be...